6.30.2010

I'm back in school this summer working more on completely my MFA in dance at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. It's far from home, but the weather is wonderful! Last week we had an intensive workshop in screendance (dance for camera, etc..) with Ellen Bromberg. It was a wonderful workshop and Ellen is a excellent teacher and guide. We worked on looking at screendance, both historically and contemporary, as well as learning techniques to create our own work. In culminating the week we each made a short screendance (2 minutes or less) with just one other person. Mine is called 'night, and here it is:

6.06.2010

I am currently working with Stefanie and Susan Oetgen in creating a new work called The Chemistry of Lime Trees. We're starting with the story of Admira and Bosko - two people who were lovers in Sarajevo and killed during the war in the 1990s. He as a Serb and she was a Muslim and they were shot by a sniper as they attempted to cross the border from one side (Muslim) to the other (Serb). We are using this story and moment in history to explore a number of subjects.

Susan was intrigued about the role of the sniper in this story - what did he know about them, how did he do his job, who was he, how does it feel to kill someone from such a distance. Susan had recently met a former sniper from the U.S. Marines and was able to discuss his experience. Through him Susan learned that in the US Marines, snipers did a fair amount of research before they go out on a mission and are able to articulate possible events (weather, terrain, etc..) that might help, hinder or halt their mission. We've decided to use these three words - Help, Hinder & Halt - as starting points to generate material for the work. Below is some excerpts from a rehearsal in which Stefanie and I are using these words in the context of Admira and Bosko - thinking about that first kiss, or first time they had sex, or just developing a physical relationship with one another and how there were starts and stops and re-allignments going on. This video is excerpts from an improv we did - the final section may or may not be improvised.